Page 45 Comic & Graphic Novel Reviews August 2017 week three

Venice (£19-99, Fanfare / Ponent Mon) by Jiro Taniguchi.

“Then I discovered my grandfather’s name in the guest book of an old hotel.”

Venice is a city of surprises.

It’s a city of gently lapping water, of dazzling light reflected on its undulating surfaces; of bridges, of sighs, of the Bridge of Sighs; of echoing footsteps and silent facades which are no less impressive when crumbling. But more than anything, Venice is a city of surprises.

If Paris is a city of vistas where everything was re-designed to be seen through, under or over, so that wherever you roam you know where you are, Venice is far more tantalising. You can catch glimpses under and over those pedestrian bridges, be they built of wood or stone, but such are its circuitous and labyrinthine trails within the embrace of its serpentine Grand Canal that all is revealed only gradually and most unexpectedly, as you take one random turn then the next.

It’s magnificent, it’s mysterious and it is coquettish. It is my favourite place in the world.

For Jiro Taniguchi, on his first trip to Venice, the city becomes a deep well of visual inspiration but also personal, familial discovery.

“I hadn’t known that my mother and grandmother had been in Venice.
“My mother never talked about my grandmother.”

Upon the death of his mother, Taniguchi discovers an exquisitely lacquered box containing old photographs and hand-drawn postcards of Venice in the 1920s or 1930s which hint at a family history he never knew and promise further revelations if only he can track down the specific locations and follow the bread crumbs on to bars, hotels and more permanent lodgings. Evidently his mother had also been an exceptionally proficient artist, but so had Jiro’s grandfather.

“A postcard by my grandfather.
“Grandfather, what kind of life did you lead in this city?”

Sparsely narrated so as not to intrude on your own perambulations (perhaps forty sentences in total?), we are presented instead with a personalised pencil and wash tour, and I cannot even begin to calculate the time each meticulously rendered, painted panel must have taken. Often there are up to five per page, but there are also dozens of full landscape spreads and one spectacular, double-page aerial panorama looking out over the domed, red-bricked church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo surrounded by smaller cream-coloured domiciles with their bright white chimneys rising up and so standing out against the horizontal planes of terracotta roof tiles. Even the yellow crane to the right is in harmony with the towers of the island beyond.

The album was commissioned by Louis Vuitton as part of its series of deluxe travel books in which artists were invited to bring their sensibilities to bear on cities foreign to them, so I’m sure that Taniguchi was recompensed in full, and it’s a consideration which our favourite Japanese comic creator – both mine and Jonathan’s – rewards with a winking nod towards the finale.

However much it looks like an art book on the first-inspected surface, it is a sequential-art narrative as you wend your way, guided by Jiro, around each corner, down tall, narrow passageways and over the smaller canals in search of the next stunning spectacle or clue as to how his grandfather lived and worked in Venice.

We begin – as any approach to Venice should – by boat, surging across the expansive blue-green lagoon towards the north of the city which lies low on the horizon, our eyes tantalisingly drawn towards its vanishing-point promise by the wooden bricola. And it is a promise rather than a full revelation, for the real treasures lie within.

Immediately we’re rushed to Piazza San Marco (and if you can resist doing precisely that, I would be very much surprised), the Byzantine Basilica first hinted at in a crystal-clear puddle’s reflection before being revealed in its full glory beyond the Campanile. Ascending the bell tower early on, as he does, is a top-tip for gleaning your first and possibly last sense of overall, topographical context.

Taniguchi’s ability to capture not just the intricacies of the ornate cupolas and the magnificence of the golden, winged lion, but also the different skies which may soar above them (dry brush for the upwards shot of the tower / wet brush for the full landscape spread) is thrilling, phenomenal.

His lines are crisp and clean but also more delicate than mere photorealism, his colours softer and oh, when it rains! From under an umbrella our explorer gazes in wonder at yet another blinding facade, this time that of San Giorgio Maggiore, and it is here that his keen judgement on the varied strengths of line for different degrees of semi-relief really comes into play. Its Palladian white marble brilliance, reflected in ripples on the wet stone below, boasts both engaged, structural columns and decorative pilasters, both adorned with Corinthian capitals. If seen straight on it would have seemed far flatter, but the angle allows the artist to accentuate its depth as well as its symmetry, while the three tourists gathered in conversation closer to the church emphasise its scale and weight.

Many of his meanderings are far more relaxed and some of his discoveries more bizarre. Around the Arsenale towards the south-east of the main island, Taniguchi almost does a double-take as he spies a leviathan of a cruise ship passing what appears to be comically close, its contrasting modernity dwarfing the buildings and footbridge in the foreground. So that’s, umm, another way to enter Venice.

The page which immediately follows shows him holding his jacket and slightly dumfounded against the more ancient, castellated shipyard area behind him.

Eventually Jiro finds himself back in San Marco, this time in the evening when the colonnades are lit up to glorious, golden effect against a sable-coloured sky while tourists dine at the posher places and Italian residents take their customary pre- or post-prandial passeggiata along the broad quayside under the shining orbs of free-standing lamps.

After that, there’s time for more than a few final flourishes – several statues and two different views of the white, Baroque, grey-domed Santa Maria della Salute before a fond farewell and a solemn promise to return, delivered with customarily Japanese gratitude.

“Oribe Tsugo, where are you now?
“I will come back and find you. Thank you, dear grandfather.”.

Now, Taniguchi didn’t take all this in nor draw it in one day (!), so I don’t advise that you attempt to absorb this in a single sitting, either. Ridiculously, you will become immune, almost inured to its majesty; bloated on its intoxicating beauty rather than drunk on its detail.

This is the advantage of the painted page browsed at your leisure: that you can focus on the intricacies of an individual balustrade or the effect on its surroundings of a trailing window box. Although there is nothing like the first-hand, eye-candy explosion of a city like Venice, a book like this enables one to sit back and appreciate in detail what might be lost in one long weekend’s exhilarating, overwhelming experience. Inevitably your eyes dart all over the place, such are the limitless wealth of monumental distractions vying for your attention, but with a book like this sat on your lap you can smile in remembrance of everything you adored, or in sublime anticipation of a unique experience yet to come.

There are more verdant areas here that I have evidently yet to discover, so I just know I’m going back. Plus I’ve never seen Venice in the rain. I shouldn’t and do not complain, but I want at least once to see Venice from under an umbrella.

All roads led to the Rialto. It doesn’t matter where you think you’re heading, you will wind up on the Rialto Bridge. On my third visit to Venice I effectively short-circuited that mildly amusing inconvenience by booking us a hotel room right on the Rialto. We returned safely and immediately home every evening.

Random turns: they will be random whether you wander map-free or not. Your ability to navigate Venice with any degree of accuracy will prove inversely proportionate to your injudiciously declared confidence. Being lost is one of its many great pleasures.

View from the Campanile. Get your bearings early, however short-lived!

Selected bits of Venice rotate overnight by 90 degrees. This renders any memorised routes unreliable. Honest advice…? Ignore maps, ditch them completely, and go with the flow. You can identify your destination upon arrival using a pocket guidebook. That’s much more satisfying.

If you have found cars, you have lost your way. I mean, really lost your way. There are no cars in Venice. Suggest re-spawning at San Marco then trying again.

Palladian facade of San Giorgio Maggiore reflected in the rain and discussed in the main review. It was actually designed by Palladio himself!

Venice is a working city, which should go without saying, but somehow didn’t in what used to blind me as a fantasy land. But here we are introduced early on to its vegetable, fish and fruit markets which obviously aren’t catering for tourists but residents. So another top-tip is to rise bright and early at least one morning to mix with commuters on their way into work while the city is still quiet enough, tourist-free, so that you can hear their patent leather shoes clap-clop-clap on stone and share their en-route espressos. I love that washing hangs out on lines between some of the residential buildings. Presumably there’s some sort of pulley system. That’s neighbourly cooperation for you.

Do not attempt to open a bottle of wine alongside the Grand Canal with teenage girls watching you. If you do, do not attempt to mitigate your observed failure by rolling your sleeves up and then trying again. Your consequent, compounded, cork-screw failure will result in much vocalised mirth.

You cannot, alas, sleep on Venice’s train-station platform any longer. My mate Ian Marshall and I did during the 1980s when there was no room one Easter season at the proverbial inn. We had a brilliant, convivial night and awoke the next morning to find so many Venetian youths flocking in to wash then blow-dry their hair using the station’s sinks and hand-dryers (twisted upwards for maximum wind-tunnel effect).

There is if not a cul-de-sac on the Grand Canal to the east of the train station, then at least a virtually untrodden path leading nowhere, which you can find by crossing the train-station bridge southwards, heading just a little in-road and left over the first footbridge, then cutting back north to reappear on the Grand Canal with not one single soul passing by to bother you. Sitting together on the canal’s edge, legs dangling and swaying freely, then opening a bottle of Prosecco is an experience what I can only describe as a sustained, shared and spiritual orgasm as you absorb the reflected opulence of the facades opposite, waving gently and colourfully in the water.

Driving Short Distances (£14-99, Jonathan Cape) by Joff Winterhart…

“Pasties’ll just be a couple of minutes boys. Mary, you met our new Saturday girl yet?”
“No, not yet. What’s she like?”
For all of Keith’s talk of ‘thin ice’ and ‘stern words to be had’ with her employer…
“She’s very quiet, but – between you and me – reckon she might be a bit of a dark horse.”
… this woman continues to work here…
“Yeah… you can just imagine finding her out of the back, taking topless selfies with a couple of cherry danishes…”
… apparently uncensored.
“…strategically placed, if you know what I mean! … AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…”
Keith does not look happy…
“… AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…”
… at all. But I wonder if our fellow customer mistakes his disapproval for just intense consideration of that last vanilla slice.

Yes, Keith is most assuredly not happy at this scandalous public display of impropriety in the bakery where he and Sam go to buy their lunchtime pasties every day without fail. But then Keith is a rather peculiar individual in his own right, being that classic British mix of both unashamedly reserved combined with a bucket load of inadvertently endearing eccentricities. There’s his relentless anecdotes about his former boss and mentor, Geoff Crozier, a larger than life character who seemingly filled the surrogate roles of uncle, big brother and father figure in Keith’s early employment, his mild distaste of fame-hungry, local-press-ever-present Councillor Mike Gibbs, an undying love for his King Charles Cavalier Spaniel (Apex Powder Blue Twice-Shy The Third a.k.a. Cleo), plus his encyclopaedic knowledge of the various movers and shakers in the local area.

So why on earth has Keith taken such an interest in our narrator, the shy, gangly Sam? Recently returned home to live with his mum at the ripe old age of 27 after a nervous breakdown, with any interest in his genuine talent for illustration and painting also seemingly shattered by the experience of just dealing with the demanding realities and daily drudgery of post-University life, Sam is in a somewhat fragile state and has come to the conclusion that what he needs to do for the moment is just find a very boring, stress-free job that will allow him to recuperate and get himself back together. So when Keith, apparently a second cousin of his absent father, last seen briefly at his parents’ wedding, appears with an offer to shadow him and teach him the ropes of his ‘distribution and delivery’ business, Sam feels the universe has spoken and decides to accept.

Now, before you get too excited imagining one Keith Lionel Nutt as some sort of mysterious, shadowy small-town drug dealer, let me stop you right there. Keith sells spare parts for very dull industrial filtration machinery… No, as with his previous work DAYS OF THE BAGNOLD SUMMER, a former Page 45 Comicbook Of The Month, Joff Winterheart once again provides a masterful, absorbing study of the sheer banality of a very typical slice of the British population and their mundane, fairly pointless social interactions. I will however add that Keith is actually a little bit of a minor man of mystery and not just in his own mind, either…

So, as Sam and Keith spend hour after hour in close proximity, mainly driving round and round Keith’s ‘distribution and delivery’ route in his left-hand-drive car (another mystery), punctuated by popping in and out of various works’ receptions encountering receptionists, topping up on meat pasties as their appetites require, Sam finds himself ever more fascinated with Keith and his past. How did Keith end up here in this small town, doing this particular job, still living the bachelor lifestyle? Why do his friends and associates apparently view him behind his back as a figure of mild fun? And why did he really offer Sam a job? The answers, when Sam finally begins to get them, as matters very gradually wind up to the farcical conclusion, are as titteringly amusing as they are sadly poignant.

Joff’s created another very engaging work here. Much like the trials and travails of teenage boredom and partial parental estrangement which he nailed so perfectly in the DAYS OF THE BAGNOLD SUMMER, I think I can safely say we all have known a Keith. Probably more than one. And, if we’ve been particularly fortunate / unfortunate (take your pick) we’ve been a Sam to said Keith, learning more than we ever cared to know about the curious inner workings of their life and mind.

Art-wise, Joff has gone for the same brilliant utterly unglamorous style as before. Weak chins, saggy necks and hairy nostrils abound. I think it perfectly and very humorously captures the everyday man and woman, actually. There are no beautiful leading ladies or handsome hunks here, though Keith mentions he has occasionally been likened to Sean Connery, with a James Bond impersonation thrown in for good measure of course! I know you shouldn’t laugh at people, but you’ll find yourself hard pressed not to, I promise. Joff’s served up a vanilla slice of British comics heaven for us to enjoy. Yes, it’s a guilty pleasure, but aren’t they the best kind..?

Palookaville #23 (£20-99, Drawn & Quarterly) by Seth…

“Generally, each home was a little worse…
“… than the previous place we lived.
“But Louise Street was the worst yet.”

It wasn’t, however, the worst… We do get to that particular abode on a trailer park eventually, though, in this latest instalment of Seth’s rather heart-rending recollection of his formative years. Not that these reminiscences are without humour, not at all. Ever the master of self-deprecation, he also had me spluttering my tea out when I got to the following bit…

“By then, I was deeply into my “New Wave Guru” phase. A mess of clothing and dyed white hair.”

Now, trust me, if you’re picturing Seth in typical emo goth mode with wild locks and ragged apparel, you would be wrong. Ever a man of style and decorum he’s got the most amazing swept-back bouffant and shoulder length combo hairstyle paired with smart white shirt, black trousers with checked bottoms, a long black Victorian style raincoat, black shades, walking cane and the ever-present cigarette dangling from his lips.

Well, actually, as he embarrassedly admits, he was rather lacking in decorum in this particular instance he illustrates, as he finally <ahem> reaches fourth base after randomly bumping into one of his childhood sweethearts several years later and promptly getting up and leaving without a word after dealing with their “unfinished business.” What a rotter! I hope she posts a proper photograph of this era Seth on social media if she has one, by way of revenge!!

As ever, this PALOOKAVILLE is a work of three parts: a slice of autobiography and a slice of Clyde Fans, neatly sandwiching some deliciously random filing, which this time round is a selection of individual pieces of art, mainly featuring period buildings, in his own inimitable, dapper style, which featured in two different recent gallery exhibitions.

I should add that for CLYDE FANS fans (sorry, couldn’t resist), this PALOOKAVILLE will be a sad, if fulfilling, moment as the epic story of Simon Matchcard draws to a conclusion by coming full circle back to the year 1957 where we left Simon at the end of the first CLYDE FANS volume. Here we see the epiphany which sets him on the course of what will turn out to be his long, lonely life. It’s a rather poignant scene, knowing as we do everything that is to follow. For here, Simon is nothing but full of optimism of what lies ahead, certain of the path he is taking and the rewards it will bring.

I Hear The Sunspot (£11-99, One Peace Books) by Yuki Fumino…

Will they?

Won’t they?

Are they?

I don’t know!

Even after finishing I’m not sure! When they talk about a gentle romantic comedy, this is like being oh so teasingly tickled with a feather duster. You don’t know whether you actually like it, but it does feel rather pleasant. Or so they tell me…

Actually, I’ve just read the publisher blurb on the reverse and the line… “More than friends, less than lovers…” is a note-perfect description of the peculiar relationship that develops between Kohei, the withdrawn, misunderstood student with a profound hearing disability and the ridiculously gregarious and irrepressibly happy Taichi, who just so happens to have a voice like a foghorn.

We open with a chance encounter involving Taichi falling through some foliage, shattering Kohei’s tranquil lunchtime in his favourite secluded spot on campus for hiding himself away. Following that dramatic entrance an unlikely friendship blossoms. Kohei offers the starving Taichi his bento box and deciding he needs to return the favour somehow, Taichi offers to be Kohei’s notetaker. Which is basically as it sounds, taking notes for him in class because Kohei can’t always hear the lecturer that well.

I then basically spent the rest of the book, which involves various mild misunderstandings and slightly awkward social situations, trying to work out if either Taichi fancied Kohei, Kohei fancied Taichi, or both. Given by the end I was none the wiser, you can probably correctly surmise this is not full-on Yaoi.

I’m not saying there isn’t a kiss, mind you, though infuriatingly, even the circumstances and camera angle surrounding their one ambiguous display of physical affection, only serves to further intrigue the reader as to precise what is, or isn’t, going on…

This softly-softly approach to the storytelling and also the very delicate art put me in mind a little of 5 CENTIMETRES A SECOND, which I also rather enjoyed for its off-beat approach. I don’t know if non-romance romance is an actual romance sub-genre, but that’s precisely what this is. There is apparently also a film adaptation which very recently opened in Japanese cinemas. I may have to check it out, if only to see if it reveals any answers to my questions!

The Story Of Jezebel (£17-99, Uncivilised Books) by Elijah Brubaker…

“Sir, your new bride is here.”
“Sigh, I don’t even know this chick. It’s a marriage of politics. Convenience.”
“Sir.”
“Fine.”
“What you do in this situation?”
“It’s not for me to say, sir.”
“Yeah. Well, I guess being a palace guard is a little different than being king. No one has problems like I have.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What do I do if she’s fugly?”
“She won’t be fugly, sir.”
“She’s probably gross. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened.”
…….
“You must be Ahab, I’m Jezebel.”
“Awesome.”

Now, it maybe a while since you read the Old Testament – specifically Book Of Kings I and it’s imaginatively named sequel Book Of Kings II, which only goes to show the mass entertainment media has been flogging the proverbial sequel donkey since waaaaay back – but you probably recall the name of Jezebel. Phoenician Princess, wife of the Jewish King Ahab, and worshipper of idols.

Having won his heart with her stunning beauty Jezebel generally caused the King no end of trouble, particularly with the prophet Elijah, whom God was prone to having one-to-ones with about how to sort the current situation, which was usually by slaughtering the rival non-Jewish prophets and performing all manner of strange, inexplicable and thus impressive stunts to the masses. I would say miracles, but of course, even the mysterious ways in which Big G himself moves need a more earthly helping hand or two behind the scenes…

This, then, is basically the story of Jezebel, told as if written as an action comedy with modern dialogue. So, on the one hand, whilst it presents its source material factually (well, okay accurately might be a better word, given it’s mostly utter nonsense) as with Robert Crumb’s GENESIS, it is done as a humorous farce much like Tom Gauld’s (imminently back-in-print) GOLIATH.

If you liked Gauld’s deadpan take on biblical babblings, you’ll love this. I can actually see a bit of Tom in Elijah Brubaker’s art, along with a wee bit of Eric BERA THE ONE-HEADED TROLL Orchard too, particularly in the characters’ facial expressions. I also loved how God is portrayed as a bad-headed genie-like midget floating around on a cloud. Not quite as surreal as how he appears in GOODNIGHT PUNPUN, perhaps, but talking about as much sense, i.e. not a lot. I’d say not one to be taken seriously, therefore, but actually the reverse is true, so you can remember just how nonsensical the original material is…

Appleseed: Alpha h/c (£21-00, Kodansha) by Iou Kuroda…

I remember buying Masamune Shirow’s original APPLESEED run back in the veritable day in the mid to late eighties and absolutely loving it for the beautifully illustrated, comedic cyberpunk instant classic it truly was. And his swiftly following, career-defining, GHOST IN THE SHELL, which alongside Katsuhiro Otomo’s AKIRA set the bench mark for thoughtful, philosophical, yet all-action cyberpunk mayhem and are still very much admired and heavily emulated today.

I have at this point to emphatically state, this is not by Shirow. Iou Kuroda’s style is rather different, considerably looser and, from certain angles, giving the odd glimpse of Paul BATTLING BOY Pope. Who of course, spent considerable time in Japan following his initial rise to fame resulting in practically zero US sequential-art output. Not that Pope has ever been what one would describe as prodigious. A prodigy perhaps. Anyway, I digress.

This is also not Appleseed. It is, technically, given it features that series two main characters Deunan and her lover combat-cyborg Briareos. But this is a prequel which is set as they arrive in a conflict-ridden New York City and it is an altogether different beast to APPLESEED itself. I found it very, very difficult to read without continuously comparing to, and wanting more of, the original. It is pretty good in its own right though, and fans of APPLESEED should take a look if they are of a mind to have their nostalgia taste buds tantalised. Though this hors d’oeuvre will probably set them off heading up to the loft to rummage around and find the main course. Next stop for your humble reviewer? Yes, you’ve guessed it.

Almost certainly the final PUNISHER MAX collection – a series in which the implacable one set his sights on real-world horror – and although it’s not as consistently, viciously and socio-politically satisfying as Garth Ennis’ tenure in the first four volumes, reviewed in depth and more often than not with Goran Parlov in tow, there are still some real, pithy gems.

Williams’s ‘Get Castle’ was exceptionally topical for Britain given the half-hearted investigations by the army into its own severe, malicious and covered-up misconduct following several cadets’ suicides.

It’s set in the Brecon Beacons where the S.A.S. train. One rogue faction, back from Afghanistan, has found something else to do on its remote Welsh mountains and, without knowing how well he was connected, they hung Corporal Dan Mitchell whose father you may well remember from PUNISHER MAX VOL 4. They hung him naked after suspending him naked and for hours. Campbell draws the man naked. This is important, for it is as stark as it is dark, and ‘Max’ for Marvel means adults only. The rain and terrain are terrific.

Now there’s a stranger in town, an American. He’s made his intentions brazenly clear in the local pub: he’s come to execute the Corporal’s killers. But he’s also done his homework, he always does a recce, and the S.A.S.officers have no idea who they’re dealing with.

It’s Frank Castle’s intuition and inventiveness I liked there, but in D’Orazio’s ‘Butterfly’ it’s the inventiveness of the storytelling I admired. It’s seen through the eyes of the Butterfly herself, an accomplished career hit-woman with pretensions to being published and whose girlfriend is oblivious to what makes the woman tick or even what set her ticking in the first place. It was decidedly grim, and it’s left her with a pretty bleak outlook.

Not a lot made me laugh there, but this did:

“I hate waiting. It’s not that I’m impatient… but waiting implies a certain degree of optimism about the future only to be found in humans and squirrels.”

Arrived, Online & Ready To Buy!

Reviews already up if they’re new formats of previous graphic novels. The best of the rest will be reviewed next week while others will retain their Diamond previews information we receive displayed as ‘Publisher Blurb’

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